Dutch energy efficiency group Energiesprong could givezero carbon retrofits to social homes across England if EU fundingis approved, the Guardian reports. A pilot scheme could startwithin a year to clad homes in insulated panel-facades andinsulated, solar panelled roofs. The concept is alreadybeingrolled outin the Netherlands. Aseparate report for the UK’s Green Investment Bank hasfoundgrowing demand for energysaving measures in the nation’s homes, offices and publicbuildings.

The German government could join that of Austria inchallenging a European Commission decision to approve state supportfor new UK nuclear reactors, according to a report in Norwegianmarket news service Montel. Following the state aid decision Frenchnuclear firm EDF said it aims to make a final investment decisionlater this year, even though legal challenges could follow earlynext year.

The UK”s largest shale gas explorer, IGas, plans to drill itsthird exploration well next month in northwest England. It is alsodue to publish estimates of shale resources in its east Midlandsconcession and the first test results of drilling at its BartonMoss site near Manchester.

The El Niño weather phenomenon is now expected to occur inthe next couple of months and last into next spring in the northernHemisphere, the US National Weather Service says. The Pacific oceanphenomenon drives extreme weather worldwide and has been expectedfor much of the summer. We’ve been keeping a close watch. ClimateCentral takes a lookat why it matters.

Denmark’s Lego has said it would not renew a brandingcontract with oil major Shell in the wake of comments fromenvironmental lobby Greenpeace saying the toymaker had fallen inwith “bad company”. In a statement announcing the move, Legocriticised Greenpeace and failed to explain its decision, Reuterssays.

Flexibility measures in the planned EU 2030 climate andenergy package could water down an emissions reduction target from40 per cent to just 26, reports RTCC. The package also riskssupporting new Polish coal plants, which could damage Europe’scredibility on the international stage.

The bad news for the world’s coal mining firms continues withreports from the US, where miners are cutting jobs and spending asalready weak shares fall further. Competition from natural gas,tightening air pollution rules and weaker than expected exportdemand have been behind US mining firm woes. Meanwhile the Chinesegovernment is planning to re-introduce coal import tariffstoprotect its own struggling mining industry. Shares in Australiancoal firms slumpedon the news.

Satellite data has been used to identify an unexplainedmethane emissions hotspot in the US. The consistently highemissions predate the US shale gas revolution pointing to othersources, the researchers found. One possible candidate is thecoalbed methane industry that extracts natural gas from coal seams.Dart Energy – soon to be taken over by fracking firm IGas -has plansto extract coalbed methane inScotland.

Google is developing wind turbines which would be tethered300 metres above ground and would have wings to help them stay airbound, reports the Mail. The kites are said to produce energy athalf the cost of conventional turbines, with 90 per cent lessmaterial required for construction.

China has only completed a quarter of its rooftop solarinstallation target for this year, according to industry quoted byReuters. It raises concerns about the growth potential in theworld’s largest solar market. A videofrom analysts Bloomberg NewEnergy Finance goes behind the number in its recent renewablesinvestment report that found China was investing billions ofdollars in solar.

Foreign secretary Philip Hammond gave his first speech onclimate change on a visit to US wind facility with US secretary ofstate John Kerry. Hammond’s speech defended the view that climateaction can go hand in hand with economic growth. He saidprecautionary climate action was needed to protect futuregenerations. His US counterpart Kerry said the world needed to acton climate change while there was still time.

Ocean monitoring became significantly easier in about 2003with the advent of ARGO – a network of thousands of automatedfloating buoys. But better quality sampling introduced anartificial jump in ocean heat content calculations, according tonew research. The new paper explains how after accounting for thisshift, the upper ocean (0 to 700m) still shows a clear warmingtrend since 1966.

Undergraduate students were presented with a temperatureforecast and information about uncertainty in either a table orgraph format. Researchers found that in most – but not all – cases,the uncertainty information helped students interpret the forecast,though those with the graph format were quicker.